Famous Failure Quotes

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then give up. There’s no use being a damn fool about it.—W.C. Fields

If at first you do succeed, try, try not to be insufferable.—Franklin P. Jones

The probability of success is difficult to estimate; but if we never search, the probability of success is zero.—Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison in “Searching for Interstellar Communications” (1959)

If you are not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re playing it safe.—Woody Allen

Most success springs from an obstacle or failure. I became a cartoonist largely because I failed in my goal of becoming a successful executive.—Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert comic strip

The war in Vietnam is going very well and will succeed.—Robert McNamara, U.S. Secretary of Defense, January 1963

I can't give you a sure-fire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time.—Herbert Bayard Swope

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.—Winston S. Churchill

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.—Thomas A. Edison